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I am not someone who discovered gratitude last year. I have kept a gratitude journal for much of my adult life.
I have turned to it in grief, in burnout, and in the ordinary seasons that needed anchoring.
As a coach, it is one of the first practices I offer people when their world feels like too much. I have even created guided gratitude journals to help others make it a habit. I believe in it.
I have seen gratitude steady a shaking nervous system, soften despair, and return people to their lives.
Which is exactly why I need to say this:
Gratitude without truth becomes toxic positivity.
Gratitude Is Everywhere—And That’s Not The Problem
It lives in morning routines. In linen-covered notebooks. In leadership programs and therapy rooms. In the quiet instruction to “focus on the good.” And yes—it can change a life.
But there is a version of gratitude we don’t talk about. The one that asks us to feel thankful when something in us is not okay. The one that silences anger that is trying to protect us. The one that turns a living practice into a performance of being “fine.” That is not gratitude. That is disconnection in spiritual language. It’s toxic to our well-being.
Real Gratitude Was Never Meant To Make Us Smaller
Real gratitude makes room. It allows joy and grief to sit at the same table. It says:
This is hard—and something here is still holding me.
It does not say:
This is hard, but I am not allowed to feel that.
Many of us were taught gratitude through phrases like:
“At least you have a job.”
“Other people have it worse.”
“Be grateful for what you’ve got.”
But that isn’t gratitude.
That is emotional compression. And over time, it teaches us to override our own experience in order to appear resilient, spiritual, or strong. The body always knows the difference.
I See This Every Day
I work with capable, thoughtful leaders who are carrying enormous responsibility. Their gratitude journals are full. And they are exhausted. Because they are using gratitude to:
>> Stay in roles that are depleting them
>> Minimise their own needs
>> Rationalise unhealthy systems
>> Avoid necessary endings
They are practicing gratitude instead of truth, not with it. And gratitude cannot do its real work there.
The Nervous System Knows
There is a physical difference between: “I am grateful” and “I am trying to be grateful.” One softens the body. The other tightens it. Authentic gratitude brings breath back online. It creates space. It slows time for a moment.
Performed gratitude disconnects us from what we actually feel. If your gratitude practice makes you feel smaller, quieter, or more compliant, that is not a failure. It is information. Truth has been left out.
So Why Keep The Practice?
Because when it is honest and authentic, gratitude steadies the whole system—reducing anxiety, regulating our emotions, improving sleep, and strengthening the resilience that carries us through hard seasons. But more than that, it restores perspective in a world designed to keep us focused on what is missing.
Gratitude is not denial. It is orientation. It helps us notice where we are resourced. Where we are supported. What is still alive in us.
The Only Gratitude Practice That Has Ever Worked For Me
Not:
What am I grateful for?
But:
What supported me today?
That question allows the whole truth in. The day can still be hard. The relationship can still be ending. The work can still be too much. And you can still see what held you.
The friend who sent a message at the exact right moment.
Five quiet minutes in the car before going inside.
Your own decision to rest instead of pushing through.
The way your body kept breathing through something difficult.
This kind of gratitude does not replace reality. It deepens your relationship to it.
Gratitude With Boundaries Is Mature Gratitude
You are allowed to say:
I am grateful for what I learned, and I am not going back.
I am grateful for the opportunity, and it cost me too much.
I am grateful for the love, and the relationship still needed to end.
This is not negativity. This is integration. This is gratitude that includes self-respect.
So Yes—Keep the Journal
But let it be honest.
Write:
Today was heavy. But the barista remembered my name and for a moment I felt like a person again.
Write:
I am exhausted and I still showed up.
Write:
I am not okay—and I am grateful I can admit that.
Because that is the moment gratitude becomes real again.
Not when it makes you look healed.
When it helps you stay.
Gratitude Was Never Meant To Be A Performance
It is a return:
>> To your body.
>> To your values.
>> To the small, steady things that make a life livable.
Not instead of truth. Alongside it. And when practiced this way, gratitude does not make you passive. It makes you present. Not more compliant. More alive. And in a culture that constantly asks us to abandon ourselves, that might be the most radical practice of all.
Let gratitude hold you, not silence you.
~
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